Archive

Quotes

The affairs of the world are no more than so much trickery, and a man who toils for money or honor or whatever else in deference to the wishes of others, rather than because his own desire or needs lead him to do so, will always be a fool.

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1774

O citizens, first acquire wealth; you can practice virtue afterward.

—Horace, c. 8 BC

Every country has the government it deserves.

—Joseph de Maistre, 1811

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.

—Thomas Jefferson, 1787

I say violence is necessary. It is as American as cherry pie.

—H. Rap Brown, 1967

Envy is the basis of democracy.

—Bertrand Russell, 1930

There is nothing more tyrannical than a strong popular feeling among a democratic people.

—Anthony Trollope, 1862

The Revolution is made by man, but man must forge his revolutionary spirit from day to day.

—Che Guevara, 1968

What experience and history teach is this—that nations and governments have never learned anything from history or acted upon any lessons they might have drawn from it.

—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1830

A riot is at bottom the language of the unheard.

—Martin Luther King Jr., c. 1967

The vice presidency isn’t worth a pitcher of warm piss.

—John Nance Garner, c. 1967

Television has made dictatorship impossible, but democracy unbearable.

—Shimon Peres, 1995

Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense—nonsense upon stilts.

—Jeremy Bentham, c. 1832